Vapiano restaurant is a little outside Lake Highlands, but if you enjoy their delicious pizza, pasta or panini this Thursday, you’ll have a chance to help others in need. The Mockingbird Station restaurant is kicking back 10% of your total bill all day to support the Wesley-Rankin Community Center.

Wesley-Rankin serves the diverse West Dallas community, providing a wide variety of programming for children, youth, adults and families. For more than 75 years they’ve offered a loving, supportive alternative to a street-life of crime, poverty and despair.

Vapiano will host live music for the special event, and the offer is good for lunch or dinner from 10am to 10pm. You can dine on the bright, airy restaurant side with big picture windows allowing a view of progress on the Bush Library, or you can lounge in the hip bar area on cushy red couches while watching sports on the big screen. Either way, be sure to mention Wesley-Rankin when you pay.

If you want to win a year’s supply of Chick-fil-A combo meals by being one of the first 100 customers of the new Chick-fil-A at the WalMart center at Northwest Highway and Skillman, here’s a guide to giving it your best shot.

Just like every new Chick-fil-A during the past eight years, the new one in our neighborhood (which opens at 6 a.m. Thursday, by the way) is hosting a “First 100 Event” to promote the location. As the program name suggests, the first 100 people in line to open the store receive the big prize, and while standing, sitting or lying in line, they’ll be entertained by Chick-fil-A with games, activities and meals.

But there’s a bit of a trick to winning, it turns out.

First off, running out to the restaurant right after you finish reading this blog post — even if it turns out you are absolutely, positively, first in line — doesn’t necessarily guarantee you a place in the winner’s circle. Turns out to be a winner, you need to be one of the first 100 people in line at 6 a.m. WEDNESDAY, the day before the store opens.

That’s when the Chick-fil-A people count those present and hand out coupons to the first 100 people there, along with designating an additional 10 or so “alternates” authorized to take over in the event any of the actual first 100 are unable to fulfill the duties of their new-found office, which basically means they somehow can’t wait in line for all of the next 24 hours. (Don’t laugh: It happens, a Chick-fil-A spokesman says.)

But wait, there’s more: If at 6 a.m. Wednesday there are not 100 people in line (which the spokesman says is unlikely but not impossible), those who continue to show up will be given winning numbers until a total of about 110 have been handed out.

And if there are more than 110 people lingering about at 6 a.m. Wednesday (the most likely scenario, the spokesman says), you can still be a winner: If more than 100 people are in line, the “winning 100″ are selected by random drawing, with all of those in attendance — no matter how long they’ve been in line — drawing numbers randomly to determine who can hang around the next 24 hours to be a winner at 6 a.m. Thursday morning.

So if you want to play the odds and have the best chance of winning while spending the least amount of time hanging around outside the store, show up at 5:45 a.m. Wednesday, hope there are more than 110 people there and participate in the random drawing. If you win, you still have to stick around for the next 24 hours. But if you don’t pull one of the lucky 110 numbers, you’ll only have invested about 30 minutes in the whole process, and you can still stop by Whataburger on your way out of the parking lot for breakfast before heading back home or off to work.

So there you have it: A few tips to help you win the 52 combo-meal prize. If you head on down there, let me know how it all turns out; I’m going to wait a couple of days and simply pay for my food there. Complete rules can be found on the restaurant’s website.

If you do head over to the new Chick-fil-A, here’s what you’ll find: 4,040 square feet of restaurant with 105 inside seats and 16 outside patio seats. This store offers two drive-thru-ordering stations that merge into a single pickup window. And just so you know, there wasn’t enough room at this store to include an indoor playground similar to the one found in the Chick-fil-A at Central Expressway and Southwestern.

Both of those restaurants, along with one across from SMU on Hillcrest, are owned by Jeff White, who has long been a big supporter of neighborhood schools with Chick-fil-A products and whose parents live in Lake Highlands.

While cruising Greenville Avenue the other day, I noticed the unmistakeable Sweet Tomatoes logo right next to neighborhood favorite Another Broken Egg at 5500 Greenville near Old Town Drive. There was no information available on-site about a projected opening date, but from what I could tell it’s probably 30-60 days away. For those of you who have been around awhile, both restaurants are located in what I believe most recently was Two Rows restaurant.

Sweet Tomatoes, if you’ve never been, is a salad and soup oriented all-you-can-eat place. I’ve been to the Addison location, and both times I’ve been impressed with the food quality and offerings. The salad bar is long, and there are 6-8 different soups available daily, along with some breakfast/brunch offerings. It’s probably a good match to be located next to Another Broken Egg (which also has a Casa Linda store), because both will probably draw a similar crowd, making the spot a good destination breakfast/brunch location without knowing exactly which place you’re intending to visit until you get there.

If Councilman Jerry Allen is right and the city’s HUD loan application gives grocers the confidence to sign on to the Town Center project, who is the most likely candidate?

Jean Smith of United Commercial Realty says that yes, Sprouts is still interested, but that’s all he was willing to say this week.

We have a call in to Tom Thumb and are waiting to hear back about its plans.

The most recent rumblings we’re hearing, all off the record, are that HEB has examined the Town Center as a potential site. Other than its Central Market stores, including the ninth and newest opening at Preston and Royal in a couple of weeks, HEB doesn’t have a presence in DFW. However, real estate types say that the Texas company has been circling the wagons, and it’s only a matter of time.

In last February’s cover story about the possibility of coveted companies such as HEB opening in Lake Highlands, neighborhood resident David Shelton of UCR Urban said that if HEB decides to expand into Dallas, Lake Highlands won’t be first on their lists, but “would be on their radar and be in their market at some point in time.” In general, real estate types agree that HEB would roll out a number of DFW stores at once because that would be optimal in terms of distribution and marketing.

An Austin American-Statesman article this week states that the company operates more than 335 stores in Texas and Northern Mexico, and is in the midst of a statewide expansion. COO Craig Boyan is quoted as saying that “business continues to be strong, and so this year, we’re making some huge investments in Texas.” The investments mentioned in the story, however, are focused in Central Texas, and a couple of years ago, Boyan said in a different Austin American-Statesman article that the company’s expansion around DFW into places such as Burleson and Waxahachie was not indicative of expansion into Dallas: “It really is to serve Central Texas better. If you were going to go into Dallas, you’d put a warehouse in Dallas.”

I called Leslie Sweet, HEB North Texas spokeswoman, and she echoed that “the company is not actively looking at going inside the DFW metroplex.”

Perhaps the rumblings are just rumblings, or perhaps we’ll see HEB or another off-the-radar grocer emerge as the Town Center anchor.

 

Canal Clothing, formerly the staple dress and accessory shop at Salons in the Park at Skillman and Northwest Highway, has moved to Hillside Village at Abrams and Mockingbird.

The boutique temporarily is located next to Romano’s Bakery, but they are remodeling a larger space just to the right of Stein Mart, and, perhaps not coincidentally, next to the salons at Hillside.

A little more about the shop: It is independently owned and specializes in “dressing customers to look their best” and “showing their clientele how to stretch their wardrobe through accessorizing.”

Complimentary fashion seminars are held in the store. “These seminars have been well received by garden clubs, professional women’s organizations, and visiting convention groups,” according to the website. “Canal Clothing also will partner with your organization to raise money and donates 10 percent of purchases to the designated charity.”

Interested in learning more about the seminars and fundraisers? Call 214.343.6177.

Without much fanfare, the Dallas City Council last week approved a HUD loan application that would provide up-front financing for Prescott Realty to construct the initial phase of the Lake Highlands Town Center, including the grocery store anchor. Councilman Jerry Allen, who represents our neighborhood, says the application has been sent to HUD, “where it will sit in never-never land for six months and will eventually get approved.” He adds that the city “feels very comfortable that this will happen and we’ll get it, but you’re dealing with the federal government. It just takes forever to get something done.”

Allen guesses that approval may take about six months, but he doesn’t believe it will take that long for Prescott to sign a grocer for the project. “When you’re out negotiating, you’ve got the full strength of the city behind you, and the collateral is there on this loan so the grocery store guys, they will feel good that this is going to happen,” Allen says.

(Speaking of federal government delays, Allen says that converting the Muchert Army reserve center into a Dallas Park and Recreation Department building is a “done deal.” The Army reserve units have moved out; it’s simply a matter of waiting on the Department of Defense to sign off, which Allen expects to happen within four months.)

Allen is feeling more optimistic these days about the Town Center because “while we’re not there by any means, maybe maybe maybe we’re just about to see this economic cycle take back off.” When Prescott launched the project in 2007, it had money for horizontal construction but not vertical, and “then the Great Recession hit,” Allen says. “Then it was a matter of keeping Prescott afloat. If they went bankrupt, it would keep that property tied up for two or three years, and when I say tied up, I mean no one’s mowing.”

If an economic upturn is taking place, however, “from a timing standpoint, it could really turn out to be to everyone’s advantage,” Allen says. “All these [retailers] lying on the sidelines [because of the downturn], they jump right back out and it becomes almost a competition to get back in the Center,” Allen says. He believes Lake Highlands needs to be positioned “with its hands out grabbing every nickel on the front end because that’s when this new construction will start,” he says. “When these cycles are going and money is flowing, you’d better get your hands on it because if you get it on the tail end of the cycle, the money’s gone.”

His strong feelings about getting in while the gettin’s good may be partly why Allen isn’t as concerned with the questions about Town Center job creation tied to the HUD loan application. “My deal is, let’s get this thing done,” Allen says. “It will create jobs. Is it going to truly create jobs or just pull jobs away from someone else? That’s probably hard to answer one way or the other.”

“Is the Town Center going to pull business from other areas? The answer is yes. Does that mean then that those other areas might die and go away? Obviously, that’s not the intention. Hopefully, these areas, too, can continue to reinvent themselves.”

Allen again cited the commercial-to-residential White Rock Place Addition project at Walnut Hill and Audelia as an example of how a “tired old shopping center” can be reinvented. “Nothing stays the same, everything changes, and if that happens elsewhere, that’s a good thing.”

“Trust me, we always do whatever we can at the city level to make sure everything is vibrant and successful.”

 

The Dallas White Rock Marathon last week hosted the awards ceremony for the winning relay teams from December’s SMU Cox Corporate Relay Challenge, which took place at the White Rock Marathon. Winning teams’ prize money was donated to the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital in the winners’ names.

Sewell dominated the competition, winning for most number of finishing teams and also taking awards in four other categories. In all, they received $13,500 to be donated to the hospital.

BNSF’s Team Velocity won for the day’s fastest corporate relay team. The five members completed the 26.2 miles in 2 hours and 43 minutes (That’s a fast 6:14 minute mile average—not too shabby for a bunch of corporate guys).

“The Corporate Relay Challenge is a great example of how deeply entrenched corporations in Dallas are in promoting health and fitness at the local level,” said Phil Baker, chairman of the Dallas White Rock Marathon board of directors. “By participating, companies are not only involved in one of the largest spectator events in Dallas, but they also support our wonderful beneficiary, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.”

The relay challenge, which is now in its sixth year, consists of five-person relay teams that participate in the full marathon relay at the Dallas White Rock Marathon^.. In 2011, a record number of participating corporations registered more than 175 total teams.

Below, all the corporate team winners: (more…)

The Shops at Park Lane has announced that Bloomingdale’s, The Outlet Store will open this spring.

Aron Northington McDonald turned her love of running errands into a business, launching the Lake Highlands-based service just before Christmas.